Sunday, 5 May 2024

Rebuilding Miss Nineteen

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Rebuilding Miss Nineteen

May 5

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Note to self - grammar check blog posts before they go out into the world - then at least there might be a chance that entirely missing words will be picked up - probably caused by offloading unstructured thoughts in the dead of night.

So.

Yesterday - Saturday - I scraped myself out of bed a little after 7am, had a shower, shave, got dressed, made a coffee while listening to Magic radio (a popular commercial station - our radio is not "magic"), then knocked on my youngest and eldest daughter's bedroom doors. I had suggested a day in London earlier in the week - part of "operation parachute our youngest the hell out of here".

Almost miraculously both girls arrived in the kitchen a few minutes later. I say miraculously because it can sometimes take atomic weapons to rouse our eldest. I think perhaps she knew her role for the day - "support sister", chaperone, and half-and-eye on the phone our youngest had back in her pocket for the first time in days.

While were were a little bit worried about our youngest giving into temptation and unblocking a certain somebody, we were more worried about he or his "ex" (never really his ex at all) creating yet more false identities in their abusive pursuit of her. Yes. That's all been happening. As with all master criminals, they don't realise the targets of their attacks - a circle of school friends - are sharing everything with their parents and each other.

Anyway.

Yesterday was all about distraction.

I looked at my newly acquired "fit-bit" late last night. 19,000 steps. 15 kilometres. 4,500 calories burned. Myself and my eldest were pretty broken by the time we got home. Our youngest was absolutely fine.

Our adventure in London took us to the Science Museum in Kensington to look *everything* (her idea - not mine - I know !?), to Hamleys in Regent Street for a visit to "The Bear Workshop", to Forbidden Planet to stock up on Manga, then on to M&M World to buy our body-weight in chocolate. It was all paid for by what we have begun calling "the pretend aeroplane money" - the proceeds of my YouTube channel. It has it's uses.

The Science Museum had a fascinating area exploring what it means to be human - with various interactive areas around genetics, intelligence, perception, and so on. I surprised the kids by being scarily good at making photo-fit pictures in one of the interactive displays. I didn't tell them that I did it by deconstructing faces in the same way you do while drawing them - measuring the gaps, and noticing the relationships of corners, creases, and folds.

It's always fascinating - visiting London. I can never quite wrap my head around the number of people travelling in all directions, all the time. Literally millions over the course of a day. Vast rivers of people - from all walks of life, all kinds of backgrounds, and probably from every corner of he world. While squashed into an underground train at one point in the day I noticed an elderly American couple in the middle of the train - apprehensively checking the route map, and looking around them. The carriage was filled with just about every race and ethnicity - I wondered if other cities around the world are as diverse, and what they thought of it.

I suppose I should go start clearing the kitchen up. We're heading out for a family lunch later. More distraction.

At the end of the week I'm taking our youngest to visit my parents on the coast for a few days. Parachuting her far away to one of her favourite places, to visit some of her favourite people. I'm hoping the distance and distraction will help a little with perspective, lower anxiety, and afford the opportunity to slow down - to take stock - to put herself back together. I imagine there will be lots of walking, beach combing, eating of ice-cream, drinking of hot-chocolate, and talking about anything and everything.

Fingers crossed.

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Friday, 3 May 2024

Filling the days with good

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Filling the days with good

May 3

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When our were young, friends with grown children confidently remarked that while boys were hard work while young, girls would provide an entirely different challenge in the years ahead.

Boy were they right. But also wrong in so many ways.

It's not really about girls at all - it's more about the kinds of people that are attracted to those that are vulnerable - the kinds of people that see opportunities to pursue, influence, manipulate, control, exploit, and abuse.

I'm being deliberately vague. Hopefully you can understand why.

We've hardly slept this week.

By turns the last few days have been stressful, worrying, depressing... and strangely educational - not just about human nature, but also about the ways some people set out to influence, distance, and deconstruct friendships and relationships surrounding those they fixate upon.

Thankfully we have a professional web developer in our house that knows his way around most of the social networks - mostly because he was either there when they launched, or he's picked them to pieces to figure out how they work. He's also perhaps the most cynical and least easily impressed person he knows. Sometimes those traits are beneficial.

It doesn’t take long to figure out how some people use the various networks, platforms, and mediums to spin webs of deceit, falsehood and lies. Sometimes the trails of breadcrumbs are easier to follow than many imagine.

Anyway.

We're not out of the hole yet. That's going to take some time. We're starting the climb out though - and that's something. Sometimes even the smallest steps forward are worth holding on to.

It’s all about distraction over the coming days and weeks. Building a safe space. Rebuilding trust. Reconnecting with old friends. Filling the days with good, rather than dwelling on the bad.